Lancaster daily intelligencer. [volume] (Lancaster, Pa.) 1864-1928, 1887-01-19
Gbe Eai,faster Jntelligenfss.
LANcAsTKR. JANUARY 10, 1851.
The Iron Trade,

The iron trade is threatened with an ad.
vance in prices that will enable foreign inn
portations to come in. Already it Is said
that steel rails have been brought into New
Orleans at cost less than that Of domestic
rails, or at s40 per ton this is about
the price asked now for rails by our mills
at the place of manufacture. There is no
doubt that there is a fine profit in rail man
ufacture at this price; and it is also clear
that our mills would not advance their
prices SO as to let in foreign rails, unless
they had more orders offered them than
they can fll. Necessarily in such case
they must leave them to foreign makers :;
and there is no help for it, save
In the increase of the capacity OF
our mills to meet the demand, which
will in a short time cure the trouble. 1t is
just 50 also in the pig iron manufacture
Such sudden demand has arisen for pig
metal that it taxes the productive capacity
OF the country to supply it. This capacity,
however, is being so greatly increased that
1t does not seem probable that there will be
any great importation Of foreign pig metal.
This will only happen if great speculative
demand seizes the market, which will call
for greater stock than is made or re-
quired for present manufacture. In such
case the price will be run up so as to bring
the outside world into our market.
The greatest advance in raw material
has not been in pig iron, but in wrought
scrap and old rails, which are now being
very freely imported, and furnish great
relief to the pig iron market, as they take
its place in the manufacture of the fin-
ished product.
We do not think it at all probable that
there will be any serious importation Of
pig iron, because the production of this
Country is 30 great now, and will be go
much greater by the summer, that it is not
easy to believe that it will not supply the
demand. But there is nothing more sur
prising than trade conditions, and nothing
about which the experienced iron maker
will hesitate more to express a confident
opinion than about the course of future
prices in his business. Six months ago
pig iron and bar iron went begging: the
makers were hurrying about every
where seeking to sell. To-day with pig
iron and bar iron from four TO ten dol.
lars per ton higher, the buyers are begging
Tor the iron and the makers are hardly able
to sNrpiS>- the demand. Wherefore the
change? The country can not greatly have
changed its natural condition in 50 short a
time. The change seems simply to have
come from a belief that it was coming
from conviction that enterprise would be
repaid in the growing condition of the
country. Capital plucked up courage, and
spectators daring, to start schemes
of profit. The South has been the fruitful
field for their experiments, even more than
the West, which, however, comes along a
good second. 1t looks as though every
valley in the South was to have a railroad
or two, under the belief that the adjacent
mountains need but TO be tapped to pour
forth streams of wealth. No doubt the usual
experience will in time be had and the
business of development will be found to
have been unduly hastened but the move
ment is in its infancy now and it will he a
good while before the elimination comes
and the tail breaks.